Tag: career

Each year, the Texas MBA Career Management team leads Treks to various cities to visit the main offices of different companies, giving Texas Full-Time MBA students a great opportunity to learn more about their industry of interest and allowing them to become more familiar with the culture at these companies. Visits typically consist of presentations, Q&A sessions, and numerous opportunities for networking with alumni and executive management.

One of the biggest trends our Employer Relations and Career Management teams have seen has been an enormous increase in student career interest in the West Coast.

In 2010, 9% of Texas MBA graduates landed jobs on the West Coast — that percentage has nearly doubled with the class of 2016! Interest in technology companies has exploded, making it a large area of focus for our annual Treks.

Complementing those two trends, West Coast tech companies have been opening offices and/or growing their corporate presence in Austin i.e., Facebook, Google, Apple, Cisco Systems, eBay, PayPal, VMware and Electronic Arts just to name a few. We continue to build our relationships with these firms, as well as seeking new opportunities.

We have also seen every facet of student interest in entrepreneurship increase, from coming into the program already running a firm, or founding a company in business school, to working at a startup or fast growing company post-graduation.

In response, the Texas MBA Program has created many unique opportunities for MBA students to network with and connect to the startup community. We now host a biannual McCombs Entrepreneurship Night, which showcases startups founded by McCombs MBA students and/or alumni.

That event is held in conjunction with Austin Startup Week in the fall and during SXSW Interactive in the spring. The contacts made during these events are invited to our Entrepreneur Society (ES) events during the school year, such as the Pitch Party in the Fall and ES Connex in the spring, a networking night for local startups looking to hire interns or full-time candidates.

2016-2017 Career Treks

Texas MBA students at the Boston Consulting Group offices in Dallas, TX

Texas MBA students at the Chevron offices in Houston, TX

Texas MBA students at the A.T. Kearney office in Dallas, TX

Texas MBA students at the Bain & Company office in Dallas, TX

Texas MBA students at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch office in New York City

MBA Career Management at McCombs works with the most discerning employers seeking innovative talent to fill their emerging leadership roles. With a student-focused Employer Relations team, we are working to create unique recruiting opportunities at global organizations throughout the year for companies that range from multinational organizations to start-ups, across the technology, finance, consulting and consumer segments. From preparing you for a summer internship to watching you land your ideal post-MBA position, we provide career resources every step of the way.

Our career advisors are professionally trained to help you assess and refine your post-graduate career goals through one-on-one guidance with additional support from Peer Advisors and specialized coaching resources. We work with you throughout your McCombs experience to create a customized strategy and timeline for your recruiting journey. We work to ensure our coaching services are student-focused and relevant, providing:

Resources, coaching and events for students interested in entrepreneurship, startups, corporate social responsibility, and nonprofit sectors.

Assessment and one-on-one advising to clarify the interests, motivators, and skills to craft a career plan that combines passion with talent.

Recruiting and networking events that leverage our students, our brand, and our geography:
– Major career fairs on campus in the fall and spring.
– 1st year career treks from coast to coast (New York, Seattle, and San Francisco) and in our own backyard (Austin, Dallas and Houston).

McCombs Entrepreneurship Nightis a bi-annual event which highlights successful McCombs entrepreneurs from the Texas MBA Program while giving students a chance to network with Texas MBAs, alumni, local entrepreneurs, and either Austin Startup Week attendees in the fall, or SXSWi attendees in the spring.

“With the broad alumni base at both Texas and the MBA program, it’s been incredibly easy to get warm introductions at firms that I previously would have had no access to. Furthermore, I find the skills I learned at school are giving me the credibility needed to jump into more senior management roles as well. Finally, with my summer internship at Adobe, I’m confident McCombs played an intricate role at helping me to achieve my future career goals.”

That six figure salary; The desire to travel the world; The ambition to make a difference. These are some of the reasons that bring us to business school and we all hope to fulfill these aspirations through that dream job at the end! At McCombs, the faculty strives to help us to do exactly that through the many resources the business school has to offer.

If you see the class BA181 in the MBA curriculum and wonder what it’s about, I’m sure you are not alone. When I came to business school, I was surprised to find not only core classes in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Marketing and Operations but also one dedicated to Career Management. This unique class is perfectly designed to prevent the ever-busy MBA from losing sight of that end goal: To not just get a job, but the right job. It is led by an extremely talented Career Management team who provide you with a road map to reach your goal. Outside of class, they are always accessible to provide advice on topics ranging from career switching, networking, resume writing, interviewing, or sometimes just providing a shoulder to lean on for advice.

Besides a dedicated Career Management team we also have access to communication coaches who help up build our brand and communication skills through personal coaching sessions. Being an international student still learning the ropes of a new culture, these resources have been extremely useful to me. I am able to walk up to the team with questions that sometimes seem silly to me, but have always gotten the support I need. This has helped me greatly during networking events and career fairs. Learn More.

Our schedules are packed with information sessions and networking events with over 350 companies visiting campus! This can sometimes get stressful with homework, exams, and networking all happening at once, but it has opened up a world of opportunities.

Networking Reception at McCombs Career Fair

Tech Trek visit to Facebook

Career resources come in many forms and one of the most valuable is the UT network. Being part of this big network gives you access so alumni and seniors who are always willing to help the next generation of graduating MBAs. My personal experience reaching out to alumni has always been extremely pleasant. They are always willing to take time out for students from their Alma Mater no matter how busy their schedule. The collaboration that the Texas MBA program fosters stays with you long after you leave school. Alumni and staff are always there to help you succeed.

Great Scott! Back to the Future Day was October 21st this year, and that week McCombs first-year MBAs glimpsed their potential destinies. With a two-day break from their courses, students trekked across the city, state and country to become better acquainted with companies from local startup RealMassive to investment banks in the Big Apple.

McCombs alumni welcomed visitors all along the way with warm greetings, fond memories and useful career development tips, as well as branded swag and delicious treats. And speaking of Hollywood classics, there were some big screens too, like this one at Austin big tech trek participant Emerson…

Thanks to MBA career advisor Daniel Liu for this photo from the big tech trek

… and futuristic motor vehicles that make modern-day stagecoaches seem so last century (yes, even when they have no class, McCombs MBA students stay classy).

Thanks to Full-Time MBA program director Tina Mabley for capturing the tech trekkers in their best Hook ‘Em poses

For 20 MBAs on the Dallas marketing trek, the Monday morning agenda comprised coffee, juice and breakfast pastries served by American Airlines, Pizza Hut for lunch, and Frito-Lay’s Rold Gold pretzel dippers as a late-afternoon snack—all at those respective firms’ corporate headquarters. Presentations from members of the Longhorn family and current employees on navigating a major merger in the travel industry, managing relationships with franchisees and reaching target customer segments through emerging platforms like Periscope, among other topics, provided the food for thought.

Six first-year MBAs at the Dallas headquarters of Pepsico’s Frito-Lay division

Houston Energy Finance (visits including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Phillips66), Houston Clean Tech (visits including NRG and First Solar), and Dallas Private Wealth/Asset Management (visits including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse) were among the other treks. The adventures in networking continued throughout the next few weeks in Houston and Dallas, as consulting firms and Houston investment banking institutions hosted more forward looking McCombs MBAs.

Marketing and Finance are the largest employment functions for Texas MBA students, and over 35% of these jobs are in the Consulting or Technology industries. For the class of 2015, over 40% of our students pursued these functions. In order to respond to the high volume of recruiting interest from employers and students, the Texas MBA Career Management team has created an annual event: “Super Week.”

This year, Super Week was held on campus January 12-16 2015. For students, it provides a focused opportunity to conduct first round interviews with top employers for summer internship positions. For employers, it grants a streamlined and competitive process for accessing McCombs talent.

As working professional MBAs are fully employed, only Full-Time MBAs interview for summer internships. About 30-50% of working professional MBAs do elect to seek employment other than their current, and many of those participate in both fall and spring on-campus recruiting for 2nd year MBAs.

We’ve asked participating employers to reflect on their Super Week experiences. Here is what they said:

Why recruit Texas MBAs?

“We recruit at McCombs because of a history of long-term success here.”
-Associate, Barclays

“Candidates at UT fit the bill academically and technically but also socially and personally.”
-Associate, Citi

“We recruit here because McCombs consistently provides great candidates who are well prepared. You deliver year after year in terms of candidates.”
-Recruiter, Simmons and Co.

“Our firm has a focus on oil and gas. McCombs has one of the best concentrations of people interested in energy/oil and gas, which makes it a perfect place for us to recruit.”
-HR Manager, North & South America, Schlumberger Business Consulting

On January 12th & 13th, 20 investment banks or financial firms conducted more than 200 interviews with 43 unique students. Wednesday through Friday, saw 11 management consulting firms conducting around 200 interviews with 76 unique students. On January 20, the Ford Career Center reopened for the spring recruiting season to include all other recruiting industries as well as a few additional banks and consulting firms.

For all involved, this event is the culmination of an intense recruiting process after months of networking and preparation. Many thanks to the MBA Students, Student Leadership, Alumni, MBA Program Office Management and Staff, Corporate and Foundation Relations, and the Recruitment Services Team for pulling together to make this happen and provide a competitive, aggressive yet “level playing field” recruiting environment. This high degree of collaboration led to McCombs being tied for 11th in the nation for business schools with the highest percentage of MBA job offers in 2014.